A place to exercise ideas before writing about them with greater discipline.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Who Thinks What is News

The following report greeted me this morning as I was reviewing my RSS feed from BBC News:

At least 80 people have been arrested during an anti-Wall Street march in New York's financial district.

Several hundred people took part in Saturday's march, which was intended to draw attention to "corporate greed and corrupt politics" in the US.

Participants carried banners supporting a range of other issues, including healthcare reform, an end to US wars and the scrapping of the death penalty.

The march came after a week of protests by the Occupy Wall Street campaign.

I shall not go into further details. Rather, I want to observe that, because yesterday was a Saturday, I could not get my usual BBC World Service Television feed, I found myself watching NBC instead. Apparently, the network did not feel the protest was important enough to make the cut of news that could fit into a half-hour (less time for commercials) slot. In other words, if I want to get an account of progressive activities in my own country, it looks as if the BBC delivers the goods better than NBC. Why am I not surprised?